Speeding toward the cliff

After seven weeks off, lawmakers returned to work this week. The question is whether lawmakers can work together to head off the so-called financial cliff the nation will reach in just over six weeks.

After seven weeks off, lawmakers returned to work this week. The question is whether lawmakers can work together to head off the so-called financial cliff the nation will reach in just over six weeks.

The financial cliff, of course, is that combination of higher taxes - with the end of the Bush era tax cuts - and spending reductions - so-called sequestration agreed to earlier as a condition of raising the nation's debt limit. Both will hit Dec. 31, just as the ball drops in Times Square.

If nothing is done, it is widely believed the nation will slip back into recession and the nation's unemployment will balloon to more than 9 percent.

The starting points: President Barack Obama wants higher taxes on the rich; House Speaker John Boehner isn't enamored of a tax increase (but he has voiced a willingness to plug so tax loopholes, which are tax increases by another name). Neither side seems excited about automatic meat-ax budget cuts, which sounds good in the abstract but is heartless and foolhardy in reality.

Will the nation speed off the cliff? Probably not. There's no upside for either party, especially for Republicans who still hold a majority in the House but who lost seats there and in the Senate as part of Obama's decisive win over Mitt Romney.

What will be required is a lowering of voices, a more cooperative spirit and, yes, compromise on both sides. That would be a welcome holiday present for the nation.